Page 22 of The Alpha King’s Hidden Mute Mate

He wore a dark blue coat with a silver wolf's head pin at the collar. Sunlight fell across his shoulders, gilding his outline in pale gold. He looked taller than I remembered, colder. Those gray-blue eyes swept over me like I was a stranger.

"You came," he said, tone flat as a weather report.

He sat at the far end of the long table—at least five chairs between us. A guard immediately spread documents before him. He bent over them, not sparing me another glance.

I stood and walked toward him. I sat in the chair beside him, pulled out the paper and charcoal, and quickly scrawled the first line. I pushed it in front of him.

He glanced at it, brow furrowing slightly.

The paper read: I was the one who danced with you at the Howling Ceremony.

He set down his documents and looked up at me. Something complex flickered in those gray-blue eyes—but not surprise.

"I know," he said.

I froze.

"I know it was you that night." He repeated it, tone flat as if stating an irrelevant fact. "Your eyes. I remember your eyes."

My mind went blank.

He knew?

He'd known all along?

Then why...

I grabbed the charcoal, fingers shaking as I wrote the second line: Then why did you lock me up?

He glanced at it, then pushed the paper back.

"You're my fated mate," he said, voice as cold as his expression. "But that doesn't mean anything. Fated mate is just a marker. An old legend. I don't need a mate who can't even speak sitting beside me, handling state affairs, meeting foreign dignitaries."

I felt that dull knife start cutting into my chest again.

I kept writing: That song. The one Leah sang in the square. I wrote it.

This time, his expression finally changed.

He stared at those words for a long time, then looked up. His gaze turned icy.

"Who told you this?" His voice was cold as winter iron. "That new maid? What did she say? That I was moved by Miss Taylor's lyrics?"

I nodded frantically, tapping the table: Yes! Everything I'm saying is true! The lyrics that moved you—I wrote them!

He stared at me for a long time.

Then he laughed. Not a warm laugh. A cold, mocking one.

"You think I'll believe you?"

I felt ice water pour over me, head to toe.

"You think I don't know what you're playing at?" He leaned back, arms crossed, looking down at me. "You heard some rumor about how Miss Taylor's song moved me. So you're lying, trying to make me believe you wrote the lyrics."

"No!" I shook my head desperately, hands flying. "I'm not lying! It's all true! You can ask her! You can check!"

"Enough." He raised his hand, cutting me off, clear irritation in his tone. "I can't understand what you're saying. And I don't want to."